For better or worse, Mark Morris’ gift to ballerina Joanna Berman has the dance world talking.

Berman, who was born in San Rafael, has spent her entire career in San Francisco. We have been very lucky, for of all the arts, dancing is the most local. It doesn't televise well. You really have to be there to see the dance take shape in three dimensions and the dancers subject to gravity. (On TV, anyone can look weightless.) The miracle Berman creates of stepping soundlessly, landing softly, of circling the stage with the ease of the heavenly bodies wheeling through space--the intoxicating effect of great classical dancing like hers requires watching it occur right before your eyes.

I loved the comment about television and gravity -- I'd never thought of that before, but I think Paul Parish is right.